Hamas’ victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections is already being sanitized by the politically correct, despite the terrorist group’s bloody track record and its fallacious and dubious historical claims to the land of Israel. Thankfully, some Western leaders are condemning the selection of murderers by Palestinians for their government.

At the top of a BBC article yesterday regarding the Hamas terrorist group winning Palestinian elections:

The win poses problems for efforts to restart peace talks with Israel, say analysts. Israel insists it will not deal with an authority including Hamas.

So this is all just Israel’s problem/fault because the majority of Palestinians want to be ruled by terrorists?!?! Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has promised to give back more land. What does Israel get in return?

From the beginning of the second intifada in 2000 until last year’s truce, Israel says that Hamas carried out 425 attacks, killing 377 and wounding 2,076.

Jewish history goes back at least 5000 years in the Levant. King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel 3000 years ago. King Solomon built the first temple there in 970 BC. Yet Mohammed didn’t even establish the Muslim religion until the 7th century AD. So how can Palestinians rightfully claim that they have first historical dibs on Jerusalem and all of Israel?

Even the open-source Wikipedia, which has been prone to politically correct sanitization, states:

It is especially painful for those of us who have spent time in Israel to hear this steady stream of delegitimization of Jewish history. How many of the Holy Land’s ancient archaeological sites scream with Jewish history, e.g., Hebrew inscriptions on weathered stone. Tel Megido? The Wailing Wall? The Cave of Machpelah (Tomb of the Patriarchs)?

Information about the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not that hard to find — especially sources verifying the historical sequence of events. For example, take the World Almanac and Book of Facts, available in any mainstream bookstore and at most public libraries. Its profile of Israel states,

… Arab invaders conquered Palestine in 636. The Arabic language and Islam prevailed within a few centuries, but a Jewish minority remained…

… Jewish immigration, begun in the late 19th century, swelled in the 1930s with refugees from the Nazis; heavy Arab immigration from Syria and Lebanon also occurred. Arab opposition to Jewish immigration turned violent in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936. The UN General Assembly voted in 1947 to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. Britain withdrew in May 1948.

Israel was declared an independent state May 14, 1948; the Arabs rejected partition. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia invaded, but failed to destroy the Jewish state, which gained territory. …

So we have ancient evidence of a Jewish presence in “Palestine” going back thousands of years, which can easily be found in any reputable archaeological journal. We have evidence of a continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land. We have evidence that Arabs, not just Jews, were immigrants into the Levant. Finally, we see that Arabs violently rejected the hallowed concept of a Palestinian homeland in 1948.

But Hamas’ election victory isn’t going over very well, among sane Western leaders, and with some whose sanity is questionable. Again, from the UK’s Telegraph:

The international community has reacted with alarm to news that Hamas, a militant organisation pledged to destroy Israel, has swept to power in Palestine’s parliamentary elections.

Western leaders united with Israel in calling for the group to give up its terrorist campaign.

American President George W Bush was similarly unequivocal. He told press: “You’re getting a sense of how I’m going to deal with Hamas if they end up in positions of responsibility. And the answer is: ‘Not until you renounce your desire to destroy Israel will we deal with you’.”

Downing Street also said Britain would only deal with the group if it gave up terror.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Of course we recognise electoral mandates, but equally people have to be clear that we can only do business with those who have renounced terrorism.

“That’s the key distinction: do people support terrorism or do they not?”

The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan joined Britain in calling Hamas’s mandate into question, insisting: “To carry weapons and participate in a democratic process and sit in parliament, there is a fundamental contradiction.”

“Any group that wishes to participate in the democratic process should ultimately disarm,” he added.

Dominique de Villepin, prime minister of France, said the “indispensable conditions” for France to work with Palestine included “the renunciation of violence and… the recognition of Israel and the recognition of international accords.”

Israel Prime Minister Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was a gamble, but one with a silver lining. The ensuing Palestinian chaos and Palestinians’ choice of murderers for their leadership are facts that will not be so easily ignored by the civilized world.